In a 1972 Playboy magazine interview, Alinsky professed agnosticism about the existence of God, but said that “whenever anyone asks me my religion, I always say—and always will say— Jewish.” The Playboy interviewer then asked Alinsky if he believed in “any kind of afterlife,” to which Alinsky said:

” . . . if there is an afterlife . . . I will unreservedly choose to go to hell . . . . Hell would be heaven for me. All my life I’ve been with the have-nots. Over here, if you’re a have-not, you’re short of…